McCarren Is Brooklyn’s First Park To Get Free Wireless Internet

Until last week portions of only four New York City parks—all in Manhattan and the Bronx—had free wireless internet service, but on Friday McCarren Park became Brooklyn’s first wi-fi equipped park. Earlier this year DUMBO became the city’s first neighborhood to get free public wireless internet in its streets, parks and public spaces, but the new McCarren signal is the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation’s first of several planned park hook-ups in Brooklyn.

Workers set up three antennae — which are fastened [to] a brick maintenance building near Driggs Avenue and Lorimer Street — to provide a speedy connection that was glitch-free when The Brooklyn Paper tested it on Friday afternoon.

How it has fared in the rain since then is anybody’s guess.

Meanwhile the Department of Parks & Recreation has wireless plans afoot for several other Brooklyn parks, including Brooklyn Bridge Park, Fort Greene Park, Bed-Stuy’s Herbert Von King Park, and of course Prospect Park—but no mention of Maria Hernandez Park. Manhattan parks slated for wireless networks include both Tompkins Square Park and the High Line, but neither Bryant Park nor Washington Square Park. But maybe that’s for the best. As park-goer Chris Hemmeter told the Paper: “I would never use the Internet in a park—that’s what the office is for.”